MT09 - Week 4 essay plan - Democratisation breakdown

Some ideas to talk about in the class.

The framework we are being given to understand regime breakdown.
Firstly what is a regime?
Someone/something/some group of people has control over the institutions of state, the departments of government and (possibly) the military
Having stronger control over more institutions/functions leads to stronger state power
Usually some political elites will direct the institutions. Why do they institutions listen to them? Because the regime has enough legitimacy or coercive power
If the regime has legitimacy in the eyes of the military it can probably coerce all other departments. If not, the other departments may have split loyalties between the regime and the military.
The military elites may be interested in a number of things - they need to retain legitimacy among their troops. Cannot therefore repress a majority of the population actively.
Popular support aids legitimacy of the regime

If the regime loses sufficient legitimacy to control the state institutions and in particular the military, it faces regime breakdown
If it doesn't have legitimacy it can try coercion (so long as it maintains the apparatus of coercion)

We can think of legitimacy in terms of five arenas (Linz and Stepan, 1996) - political, economic, civil society, rule of law, state apparatus (including the military?)

Breakdown led by the public comes either through civil society or through (ordinary people) circumventing the rule of law


Why does democracy not emerge?
In some cases - because there is not sufficient economic and social development. Borrowing from development theory, we can think of the poverty traps that consign countries to low development. Having the natural resource curse; being landlocked with bad neighbours; conflict trap; poor governance. 3 and 4 can be self perpetuating. 1 and 2 are structural factors. Natural resource trap, from Boix theory, can lead to increased costs of democratisation as well as the economic impact.
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Capoccia (2001) Defending democracy: reactions to extremism in inter-war europe (book)

Cappocia, Giovanni. Defending Democracy; Reactions to Extremism in Interwar Europe
Reading MT09 Week 4 - Chp 3 pp. 47-67.

Notes. (more)

Mansfield and Snyder (2005) Electing to Fight...

Mansfield, Edward and Jack Snyder, (2005) Electing to Fight Why Emerging Democracies go to War.
Reading list MT09 Week 4: Chapt 3 pp.39-68.

Notes. (more)

Levitsky and Way ( ) Competitive Authoritarianism

Levitsky, Steven and Lucan Way Competitive Authoritarianism: The Origins and Evolution of Hybrid Regimes in the Post-Cold War Era (with Lucan A. Way). New York: Cambridge University Press Chapter 1 and conclusion.

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Howard and Roessler (2006) Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes in Competitive Authoritaran Regimes

Howard, Marc Morjé, and Philip G. Roessler (2006) ? Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes in
Competitive Authoritarian Regimes ? American Journal of Political Science 50 (2), 365–381.

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Diamond and Morlino (2004) The Quality of Democracy: An Overview

Diamond, Larry and Leonardo Morlino 2004 “The Quality of Democracy: An Overview” J D 15
(4) 20-31.

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Carothers (2002) The End of the Transition Paradigm

Carothers, Thomas 2002 “The End of the Transition Paradigm” JD 13:1 pp5-21.

This piece looks at cases after the supposed "third wave" of democracy, in 1970-1990.

The transition paradigm no longer works.
1. Any country moving away from dictatorial rule is in transition to democracy
2. Democracy tends to unfold in a set sequence of stages
1. The opening - democratic ferment and political liberalisation, cracks appear, most prominent fault line between hardliners and softliners.
2. Breakthrough, collapse of the regime and a rapid installation of a democratic one
3. Consolidation - slow process democratic forms are translated into democratic substance
Criticism - it involves a lot of teleology
4. Belief that underlying conditions, e.g. economic level, political history, institutional legacies, ethnic make-up, sociocultural traditions, etc. will not be critical factors. All that was necessary was a decision by the political elites and the ability to fend off threats from antidemo forces.

Belief in the value of elections - giving post dictatorial regimes legitimacy and increasing political participation

Gray (sic) zone - countries that are neither dictatorial nor heading towards democracy
Syndromes:
Feckless pluralism and Dominant-power politics are 2 gray zone alternatives
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